ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK
THE AMERICAN
Bangkok! Oriental setting
And the city don’t know what the city is getting
The crème de la crème of the chess world in a
Show with everything but Yul Brynner
Time flies–doesn’t seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it
All change–don’t you know that when you
Play at this level there’s no ordinary venue
It’s Iceland–or the Phillipines–or Hastings–or–or this place!
CHORUS
One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain’t free
You’ll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you’re lucky then the god’s a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me.
THE AMERICAN
One town’s very like another
When your head’s down over your pieces, brother.
CHORUS
It’s a drag, it’s a bore, it’s really such a pity
To be looking at the board, not looking at the city.
THE AMERICAN
Whaddya mean? Ya seen one crowded,
Polluted, stinking town–
CHORUS
Tea, girls, warm, sweet
Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite.
THE AMERICAN
Get Thai’d! You’re talking to a tourist
Whose every move’s among the purist.
I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine.
CHORUS
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can’t be too careful with your company.
I can feel the devil walking next to me
THE AMERICAN
Siam’s gonna be the witness
To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness
This grips me more than would a
Muddy old river or reclining Buddha
And thank God I’m only watching the game–
Controlling it
I don’t see you guys rating
The kind of mate I’m contemplating
I’d let you watch, I would invite you
But the queen’s we use would not excite you
So you better go back to your bars, your
Temples, your massage parlors…
CHORUS
One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain’t free
You’ll find a god in every golden cloister
A little flesh a little history
I can feel an angel sliding up to me.
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can’t be too careful with your company.
I can feel the devil walking next to me.
HEAVEN HELP MY HEART
FLORENCE
If it were love I should give that love every second I have
And I do
Did I know where he’d lead me to?
Did I plan
Doing all of this for the love of a man?
Well I let it happen anyhow
And what I’m feeling now
Has no easy explanations
Reason plays no part
Heaven help my heart
I love him too much
What if he saw my whole existence
Turning around a word, a smile, a touch?
One of these days, and it won’t be long, he’ll know more about me
Than he should
All my dreams will be understood.
No surprise
Nothing more to learn from the look in my eyes
Though I know that time is not my friend
I’ll fight it to the end
hoping to keep this best of moments
When the passions start
Heaven help my heart.
The day that I find.
Suddenly I’ve run out of secrets.
Suddenly I’m not always on his mind
Maybe it’s best to love a stranger
Well that’s what I’ve done–
Heaven help my heart.
ARGUMENT
FLORENCE
I would have thought in the average affair
That the first hint of trouble would be
Oh so small; barely perceptible, easy to miss
Why is ours on TV?
THE RUSSIAN
Listen–you know as I do
Nothing’s altered at all
I have no intention–
FLORENCE
Your personal life’s
The lead on the news!
How do we ignore that?
THE RUSSIAN
I do and I must because otherwise I say
Goodbye to my hopes of retaining my title
If I should succumb to emotional blackmail I’m done–
FLORENCE
Looking after number one!
THE RUSSIAN
What do you mean?
FLORENCE
I mean it’s always I this and I that
What happened to us?
THE RUSSIAN
All that I’m saying is I must make certain
That nothing distracts me from chess
When I’ve won
Then I’ll attend to the secondary things–
FLORENCE
Things like me I suppose
THE RUSSIAN
No, no–you’re reacting
Exactly the way that they want
FLORENCE
It’s the way I have to
If I feel concerned I can’t put it off
And come back to it later
THE RUSSIAN
Well if you’re determined to jump when they tell you
Then maybe it’s best that you do it alone
Watch TV, read the papers, have the miserable time of your life
You could even call my wife!
I KNOW HIM SO WELL
FLORENCE
Nothing is so good it lasts eternally
Perfect situations must go wrong
But this has never yet prevented me
Wanting far too much for far too long
Looking back I could have played it differently
Learned a little more before I fell
But it took time to understand the man
Now at least I know I know him well.
|
FLORENCE |
SVETLANA |
|
Wasn’t it good? |
Oh so good |
|
Wasn’t he fine? |
Oh so fine |
|
Isn’t it madness? | |
|
He can’t be mine? |
He can’t be mine? |
|
But in the end he needs | |
|
a little bit more than me | |
|
More security |
He needs his fantasy |
|
And freedom. |
|
|
I know him so well. |
SVETLANA
No one in your life is with you constantly
No one is completely on your side
And though I move my world to be with him
Still the gap between us is too wide.
|
Looking back I could |
Looking back I could |
|
Have played things |
Have played it differently |
|
Some other way |
Differently |
|
Won a few |
|
|
More moments |
|
|
I was just a little |
Who can tell? |
|
Careless–maybe. | |
|
But I was |
|
|
Ever so much |
|
|
Now at least |
Younger then. |
|
I know him well. |
Now at least |
BOTH
I know I know him well.
|
SVETLANA |
FLORENCE |
|
Wasn’t it good? |
Oh so good |
|
Wasn’t he fine! |
Oh so fine |
|
Isn’t it madness |
BOTH
He won’t be mine?
Didn’t I know
How it could go?
If I knew from the start
Why am I falling apart?
|
FLORENCE |
SVETLANA |
|
Wasn’t it good? |
|
|
Wasn’t he fine! |
|
|
Isn’t it madness | |
|
He won’t be mine? |
He won’t be mine? |
|
But in the end he needs a | |
|
Little bit more than me | |
|
More security |
He needs his |
|
Fantasy and freedom |
|
|
I know him so well | |
|
It took time to understand him |
|
|
I know him so well. |
I know him so well. |
THE DEAL (NO DEAL)
THE AMERICAN
Communist, democrat
An intriguing collusion
Fair exchange–tit for tat
Comradeship in profusion
And the appeal, partner
Of this deal, partner
Is we all stand to win
You and me, and the lady also
Don’t break her heart partner
Just be smart, partner
Let her think that her past
Is as pure as snow in Moscow
Thank God we’re so civilized
And our word can be our bond
We can turn this into friendship for life
And beyond–
THE RUSSIAN
Refugee, total shit
Is how I’ve always seen us
Not a help you’ll admit
To agreement between us
There’s no deal, partner
Who’s your real partner?
Could there be just a chance
That you’ve got some heavy clients?
THE AMERICAN (and voice of MOLOKOV)
That’s not true, partner
How could you, partner
Think I’d want to pursue
Any deal but our own alliance?
(on his own)
How can you think
Of your selfish ambition?
And not of her position?
Or you’d rather perhaps
See her world collapse?
For a tinpot competition!
THE RUSSIAN
There’s no deal
THE AMERICAN (to FLORENCE)
Silly boy, woman who
He should not have let walk out
There’s no hitch that we two
Can’t untangle or talk out
And the appeal, partner
Of this deal, partner
Is we both stand to win
We’ll bring back the golden era
Stick with me, honey
Leave him be, honey
In return I know who’ll
Tell you all they know in Moscow
FLORENCE
Are you sick? Are you mad?
You still don’t understand why I loathe you, why I left you?
FLORENCE AND THE RUSSIAN
Who’d ever think it?
Such a squalid little ending
Watching him descending
Just as far as he can go
I’m learning things I didn’t want to know
Who’d ever guess it?
This would be the situation
One more complication
Should be neither here nor there
I wish I had it in me not to care
Let him spill out his hate
Till he knows he’s deserted
There’s no point wasting time
Preaching to the perverted
PITY THE CHILD
FREDDIE
When I was nine I learned survival
Taught myself not to care
I was my single good companion
Taking my comfort there
Up in my room I planned my conquests
On my own–never asked for a helping hand
No one would understand
I never asked the pair who fought below
Just in case they said “No.”
Pity the child who has ambition
Knows what he wants to do
Knows that he’ll never fit the system
Others expect him to
Pity the child who knew his parents
Saw their faults, saw their love die before his eyes
Pity a child that wise
He never asked “Did I cause your distress?”
Just in case they said “Yes.”
When I was twelve my father moved out
Left with a whimper–not with a shout
I didn’t miss him–he made it perfectly clear
I was a fool and probably queer
Fool that I was I thought this would bring
Those he had left closer together
She made her move the moment he crawled away.
I was the last the woman told
She never let her bed get cold
Someone moved in–I shut my door
Someone to treat her just the same way as before.
I took the road of least resistance
I had my game to play
I had the skill, and more–the hunger
Easy to get away
Pity the child with no such weapons
No defense, no escape from the ties that bind
Always a step behind
I never called to tell her all I’d done
I was only her son!
(Musical Interlude)
Pity the child, but not forever
Not if he stays that way
He can get all he ever wanted
If he’s prepared to pay
Pity instead the careless mother
What she missed,
What she lost when she let me go
And I wonder does she know?
I never call. A crazy thing to do
Just in case she said “Who?”
ENDGAME
(In the background, CHOIR sings
the names of previous world champions)
Morphy, Anderson, Steinitz, Lasker,
Capablanca, Alekhine, Euew, Botvinnik,
Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov
MOLOKOV
How straightforward the game
When one has trust in one’s player
And how great the relief
Working for one who believes in
Loyalty, heritage, true to his kind come what may
THE AMERICAN
Though it gives me no joy
Adding to your satisfaction
You can safely assume
Your late unlamented employee
Knows if he wins then the only thing won is the chess
MOLOKOV
It’s the weak who accept
Tawdry untruths about freedom
Prostituting themselves
Chasing a spurious starlight
Trinkets in airports sufficient to lead them astray
FLORENCE
Does the player exist
In any human endeavor
Who’s been known to resist
Sirens of fame and possessions?
They will destroy you, not rivals, not age, not success
THE RUSSIAN
They all think they see a man
Who doesn’t know
Which move to make
Which way to go
Whose private life
Caused his decline
Wrecked his grand design
Some are vicious, some are fools
And others blind
To see in me
One of their kind.
Anyone can be
A husband, lover
Sooner them than me
When they discover
Their domestic bliss is
Shelter for their failing
Nothing could be worse
Then self-denial
Having to rehearse
The endless trial
Of a partner’s rather sad
Demands prevailing
SVETLANA
As you watch yourself caring
About a minor sporting triumph, sharing
Your win with esoterics
Paranoids, hysterics
Who don’t pay any attention to
What goes on around them
They leave the ones they love the way they found them
A normal person must
Dismiss you with disgust
And weep for those who trusted you
THE RUSSIAN
Nothing you have said
Is revelation
Take my blues as read
My consolation–
Finding out at last my one true obligation
SVETLANA AND CROWD
Listen to them shout
They saw you do it
In their minds no doubt
That you’ve been through it
Suffered for your art but
In the end a winner
Who could not be stirred?
Such dedication
We have never heard
Such an ovation
Skill and guts a model
For the young beginner
They’re completely enchanted
But they don’t take your qualities for granted
It isn’t very often
That the critics soften
Nonetheless you’ve won their hearts
How can we begin to
Appreciate the work that you’ve put into
Your calling through the years
The blood, the sweat and tears,
The late late nights, the early starts
There they go again!
Your deeds inflame them
Drive them wild, but then
Who wants to tame them?
If they want a part of you
Who’d really blame them?
THE RUSSIAN
And so you’re letting me know–
SVETLANA
For you’re the only who’s never suffered anything at all
THE RUSSIAN
How you’ve hated my success–
SVETLANA
Well I won’t crawl–
And you can slink back to your pawns and to your tarts
THE RUSSIAN
And every poisoned word shows that you never understood
|
SVETLANA |
THE RUSSIAN |
|
Liar! |
Never! |
|
Liar! |
Never! |
|
Liar! |
Never! |
THE RUSSIAN
Never!
BOTH
Nothing you have said
Is revelation
Take my blues as read
My consolation–
SVETLANA
Finding out that I’m my only obligation
THE RUSSIAN
Is there no one in my life
Who will not claim
The right to steal
My work, my name
My success, my fame
And my freedom?
EPILOGUE: YOU AND I/THE STORY OF CHESS
THE RUSSIAN
Knowing I want you
Knowing I love you
I can’t explain why I remain
Careless about you
FLORENCE
I’ve been a fool to allow
Dreams to become great expectations
THE RUSSIAN
How can I love you so much yet make no move?
BOTH
I pray the days and nights
In their endless weary procession
Soon overwhelm my sad obsession
You and I
We’ve seen it all
Chasing our hearts’ desire
But we go on pretending
Stories like ours
Have happy endings.
THE RUSSIAN
You could not give me
More than you gave me
Why should there be something in me
Still discontented?
FLORENCE
I won’t look back anymore
And if I do–just for a moment
THE RUSSIAN
I’ll soon be happy to say I knew her when
BOTH
But if you hear today
I’m no longer quite so devoted
To this affair, I’ve been misquoted
You and I
We’ve seen it all
Chasing our hearts’ desire
But we go on pretending
Stories like ours
Have happy endings.
CHOIR
Each game of chess means there’s one less
Variation left to be played.
Each day got through means one or two
Less mistakes remain to be made.
Not much is known
Of early days of chess beyond a fairly vague report
That fifteen hundred years ago two princes fought,
Though brothers, for a Hindu throne.
Their mother cried
For no one really likes their offspring fighting to the death.
She begged them stop the slaughter with her every breath
But sure enough one brother died.
Sad beyond belief
She told her winning son
“You have caused such grief–
I can’t forgive this evil thing you’ve done.”
He tried to explain
How things had really been
But he tried in vain.
No words of his could satisfy the queen.
And so he asked the wisest men he knew
The way to lessen her distress.
They told him he’d be pretty certain to impressd
By using model soldiers on
A checkered board to show it was his brother’s fault–
They thus invented chess.
Chess displayed no inertia
Soon spread to Persia
Then west
Next the Arabs refined it
Thus redesigned, it
Progressed
Still furthur yet
And when Constantinople fell in 1453
One would have noticed every other refugee
Included in his bags a set
Once in the hands
And in the minds of leading figures of the Renaissance
The spirit and the speed of chess made swift advance
Through all of Europe’s vital lands
Where we must record
The game was furthur changed
Right across the board
The western touch
Upon the pieces ranged
King and queen and rook
And bishop, knight and pawn
All took on the look
We know today
The modern game was born
And in the end
We see a game that started by mistake in Hindustan
And boosted in the main by what is now Iran
Become the simplest and most complicated
Pleasure yet devised
For just the kind of mind
Who would appreciate this well-researched and fascinating yarn
FLORENCE
This is an all too familiar scene
THE RUSSIAN
Hopeless reflections on what might have been
BOTH
From all sides the incessant and burning question:
FLORENCE
“Bearing in mind your predicament now–
THE RUSSIAN
–what you did then–
BOTH
–we’re just dying to know would you do it all again?”
CHOIR
Each day we get through means one less mistake there for the making
BOTH
But they know full well
It’s not hard to tell
Though my heart is breaking
I’d give the world for that moment with you
When we thought we knew
That our love would last
But the moment passed
With no warning, far too fast
You and I
We’ve seen it all
Chasing our hearts’ desire
But we go on believing
Stories like ours
Have happy endings